It was Earth Day. It was cold, and I was wearing a winter hat.

We had written a scavenger hunt for our year-round staff, to get them out on campus. Was this too wacky an idea? We were about to find out.

The first prompt on the page: "Take a funny picture with the bear at Meadowview."

It requires finding Meadowview and knowing there’s a bear there, for some reason.

There are thousands of places like this at camp.

A place you love will let you spend years on its grounds without ever counting the benches at the lake. You can sit through a hundred Sunday mornings in Lakeside Chapel and never know

how many rows there are.

You can walk past the Perch in the Pavilion and never bother looking up at the cushions in the loft.

You can sit down for a hundred (a thousand?) meals in the dining hall and never count how many chairs there are.

You can spend summer after summer at camp and not bother counting the number of steps from arts and crafts to the pool. Why would you?

The place holds those details in trust for you, until you are ready to notice them.

So we wrote a Johnsonburg Camp and Retreat Center scavenger hunt.

A few of the questions to answer along the way:

• How many cushions are in the Pavilion Perch?

• How many rows of benches are in Lakeside Chapel?

• What is the brand of the stoves in the kitchen?

• How many benches are at the lake?

• Take a picture by the water tower in the High Points.

How many of those can you answer? How many can you picture?

We walked the whole property together. We picked up a little trash as we went (because yes, it was Earth Day). We saw the Flourish Preschool students picking up trash too (because yes again, it was Earth Day).

We laughed. We took our picture with the bear. The cushions in the Perch got counted.

By the time we came back to the office, camp felt different. Not new. But still very much ours. And I mean all of us Johnsonburg people, not just those walking around on Earth Day.

Does it matter what brand of stove is in the kitchen? No.

But if you have ever loved a place, you know how this works. You collect its small, strange facts anyway.

That it’s not a road running out front. It’s 519. That there’s the one squeaky door in Gum cabin. That Cardiac Hill still requires a little more effort than you’re used to. You carry those little things, those little details around for years without meaning to. And maybe when you meet someone else who loves the same place, you bring them out like trading cards, things to swap with care.

We walked around camp to see all these little things. And it felt a little like we were walking with everyone who’s already walked these paths.

So here is what I am asking.

Take your own walk.

Down the gravel road past the office. Past the Dining Hall with the stoves you could not name. Up into the High Points. Through Lakeside Chapel with its rows of benches facing Glover's Pond. Out to the labyrinth.

You can do this with your feet, if you are close enough. You can do this with your eyes closed, if you are not.

Either way, count something. Find one small fact about Johnsonburg that you are proud to know.

Though if I am being honest, the number or the fact does not matter. The noticing does. The small things always add up to the big thing.

 

With gratitude for this special place,